A dryad's reflections
by Clara Fonteyn
Summary: Before her death, Juniper looks back at her life and the Second Titan War, and realizes that she still misses Grover. Groviper. One-shot. Complete.


The disease has taken many, many of my sister dryads. I am one of the last, but I too shall succumb. It's not far now. My mind is darkening and I cannot think clearly. My vision is blurring at the edges, burning like a piece of paper.

No, it is not long now. I haven't long left.

I melt out of the tree. I can feel my strength weakening, ebbing. I glance at the forest, or at least what is left of it. Although the world outside had changed a great deal, the forest had not changed very much till a year or so ago. When this accursed plague had landed, taking with it almost everything that ever meant anything to me. Almost all the familiar landmarks are gone—Martha's maple tree, the edge of the brook is dry, and the remaining water seems dead. It is because the naiads—water spirits—_are. _

I extend my glance…and immediately I know that it is a mistake. The first thing my gaze falls on is the blueberry bush I was so jealous of back…back then, during the war era.

I turned my mind from the matter. I think over my life, all the thousand years of it. I think over the boring, humdrum years spent before this land was settled. I was born in 1200, and before we had the trouble of worrying about the settlers, about the inventions, about the pollution…before all of that, we were simple. We lived and played together, my sisters and I did. It was simple, we were simple, life itself was simple.

But then…all of it happened. Much of American History. The Revolutionary War. The Civil, the two world wars. I had seen it all, or heard of it. All wars to be feared, to be abhorred, to be…threatening. But there was no war like the one _we_ had seen, the one that my true comrades had seen.

It's been two hundred years, two centuries. The hero of the prophecy, Percy, had died, Annabeth soon after him. I knew of Nico Di Angelo's death. Other names and dates were a blur. Clarisse LaRue. Chris Rodriguez. And their children, of course. The next generation, too, had passed me by. It was a living curse, what I had. So close to immortality, but not quite so.

As much as I had wished to avoid it, there was no dodging it. I was back at the height of my life…at the war. All the names—Percy, Annabeth, Silena, Beckendorf…they all stung. But there was one name that stung, that smarted more than any other. _Grover Underwood_. Grover…Grover, too, had gone. Gone with the wind, as all the others. We'd worked alongside each other for years too many to count, trying to save the world. It was horrific irony that what I'd tried to abolish was what was killing me.

Of course, it truly wasn't _killing _me. To die would be a mercy. To be able to look forward to something…to Hades, that would be a gift. To know that I would be reunited with him, that would be a kindness. But of course, I couldn't have that, either. I would be reincarnated as something else in nature, just as he had been.

I wished, oh, how I _wished_, that for Grover and me, it could be that simple. That we could simply go to Elysium as the rest. As the lucky had. But that was not to be our fate, now or ever. For if we were to be born again into this curse, this blessing, this _wilderness_, we would simply die again and be reborn again in this wilderness. And again, and again, till either time ended or space.

But there was no more time to dwell on the matter. My vision was gone…I was all but blind. In one frightened, startled movement I jerked back into my tree. I had begun my life there, and that was where it would end.

And then it ends.

And I don't know where I am.

But it's alright, because I hear _his_ voice. He tells me where to go, and I go. There's the boat, and I see who I know is Charon. We row over the boat. Charon asks for no payment.

Grover entangles his fingers with mine and tugs me, gently, along. I walk with him, past the fields. Then I feel his guiding hand slipping out of mine. I refuse to let go, clinging to his fingers.

"It's alright," he says, "we'll meet again soon."

I believe him. I let him go. And then I keep walking towards the judjing line. Because if this is the end, then why not? What's there to be lost?

"You are safe in my heart, Grover," I whisper quietly. He is not there to hear me, but no matter. "And reincarnated or not, my heart will go on."


End file.
